Accessibility

MSF&W provides a full range of accessibility services to help make sure your information systems are fully accessible to staff and customers with disabilities. For more than 15 years, our accessibility team has provided audit, remediation, training, and technical assistance services to ensure that clients meet relevant accessibility standards, including Section 508, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), and the Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA). Our experience working directly with assistive technology users allows us to understand not only what makes websites compliant with standards, but also what makes them truly usable for people with disabilities.

What Is Accessibility?
Something is "accessible" when it can be used by people with disabilities. In the same way buildings have ramps for people using wheelchairs, information systems and websites need to be accessible to employees or customers who are blind, deaf, or physically disabled.
When an information system is accessible, its screens can be magnified and color-enhanced, its text can be read aloud with computer synthesized speech, its audio tracks can be translated to text as closed captions, and it can be operated using special keyboards or voice commands.

Why is Accessibility Important?
Accessibility is the Law
Accessibility is Good Business

Where Do I Start?

Audits
MSF&W can test your websites, applications, and electronic documents using the leading assistive technology tools and identify the best solutions to any accessibility problems. Our expert testers can identify and make recommendations for the subjective accessibility problems that automated testing tools miss.

Training
We provide customized, hands-on training to teach designers and developers how to create accessible websites, information systems, and electronic documents. Training topics include:
- Introduction to Web Accessibility
- Building Accessible Websites
- Testing for Accessibility
- Creating Accessible PDF Documents

Technical Assistance
We also provide technical assistance and mentoring to help you develop or repair accessibility issues of your own.

Development
MSF&W can design and build your new websites and information systems so they are accessible from the start.

Document Remediation
MSF&W can review your PDF documents and repair accessibility issues, ensuring that they are accessible to people with disabilities.